LBN438 in Lacerta and a big bunch of galaxies

[gorann]

Nights are bright so I am reprocessing RASA 8 data from last season, focusing on those I collected before I got hold of Star Xterminator. That filter makes quite a difference as I can stretch the nebulosity more. With this image, I was impressed how well Star Xterminator takes away stars and leave even small galaxies, which made me realize how densely packed this image was with galaxies, some looking like grand design galaxies (so please zoom in).

The prominent central structure is LBN438, which is catalogued in Lynds' Catalogue of Bright Nebulae, but it is quite dim and demands rather deep data and stretch. Its magnitude is 16 and the surface brightness only 23. It is 30 arc-minutes long. There are more LBNs in the image including 435 and 440. The nebulosity is part of the Lacerta Molecular Cloud.

This is actually only 4 hours (2 x 2 hours) with my dual-RASA8 rig with ASI260MC, but it must have been quite dark on that September night in 2021. Processed in PI and mainly PS.

Here is the image together with a "crude" plate solve from Astrobin and an annotated one with the galaxies done in PI.

Cheers, Göran

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 24, 2022 by gorann

[glafnazur]

You're right about zooming in, so many galaxies. Great stuff 👍

[gorann]

Thanks a lot! Much there to explore with a longer focal lenght scope.

[tomato]

Great, not often that an image contains both dust and galaxies, but  I suppose that a lot of dust will generally obscure the background detail. 
I’m looking forward to seeing all those undiscovered distant galaxies that the JWST will reveal.

[gorann]

Thanks Steve! Yes, apparently IR penetrates dust better than visual light, so there will be a lot to enter into catalogues.